Flag of Krivoy Rog

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Miners and young pioneers in front of the Krivoy Rog flag. 3rd November 1952.

The flag of Krivoy Rog is a red flag that came to Germany in 1929 from the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from the Ukrainian mining region of Krivoy Rog as a gift to the Communist Party of Germany in the Mansfeld region .

The flag, which the communist member of the state parliament Karl Schulz from Berlin-Neukölln in Gerbstedt is said to have ceremoniously handed over to the local KPD, was always carried as a symbol of the workers' movement by the communists during their demonstrations and marches in the Mansfeld region during the Weimar Republic . According to official GDR historiography, she was received by Otto Brosowski, secretary of a KPD cell, and hidden by him during the Nazi era . According to statements by older residents of Gerbstedt that were made after the fall of the Wall and German reunification , Brosowski was viewed more as a follower of the KPD. The flag was therefore initially hidden from the National Socialists by another family in Gerbstedt , but then brought to the house of Brosowski, who was considered unsuspecting, which meant that he was taking a high risk. Here it is said to have been sewn between two tablecloths, on the living room table. Otto Brosowski hid the flag in a wall of his rabbit hutch on his return from one year imprisonment in the Lichtenburg concentration camp in 1934.

At the end of the Second World War , the Mansfeld region was occupied by American troops, who surrendered the area to the Red Army after the Yalta Conference . When the Soviet soldiers marched into Gerbstedt, they were received by the Brosovsky family with the Krivoy Rog flag. According to Rudolf Brosowski, Otto Brosowski's grandson, his grandfather hung the flag from the window and the Soviet commander then contacted the family.

During the GDR era, the flag or specially made duplicates as a symbol of the communists' resistance against fascism and the alliance with the Soviet Union were often shown at official events. From 1964 the flag was exhibited in the Museum of German History in Berlin and stored in the museum's magazine after the fall of the Wall. In 2007 the restored flag was shown in a special exhibition at the museum.

The handover of the flag to the Red Army was the subject of a painting by Karl Kothe in 1953 . In 1959 the novel " The Flag of Krivoy Rog " by Otto Gotsche was published . In the following year Heiner Müller dealt with the topic in a chamber play . The eponymous film by Kurt Maetzig was performed in 1967 for the first time.

literature

  • VEB Mansfeld Kombinat Wilhelm Pieck (Hrsg.): The flag of Krivoy Rog: symbol of our friendship; Tradition and present; [Mansfeld - Krivoy Rog 1929-1989]. Mansfeld 1989

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